DEGGSY’S 10 WORST HORROR MOVIES OF 2012

It’s that time of the year!! The time or your favorite horror blogs to put forth their choices for the best & worst horror films of the year. But you lucky readers get a bonus: both Deggsy and I will be putting our choices in front of you, and we expect feedback. Whether you agree with us 100% or think we’re full of shit, we expect to hear your thoughts.

First up is Deggsy’s picks for the worst horror films of 2012. Enjoy!!

Science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon (whom Trekkies will know from penning the Classic episodes “Shore Leave” and “Amok Time”, was credited with Sturgeon’s Law, which states that ninety percent of everything is crap. It’s easy to believe that. In fact, It’s probably better to say that ninety percent of everything is manageable, adequate, serving its purpose but hardly memorable. Five percent will be superlative. And that last five percent?

Well…

Looking at the ones I chose, there are a number of differing reasons for my thinking they’re the worst. I did notice that nearly half of them are in the Found Footage genre. Hopefully someone will take the hint and think that maybe this is a genre that needs a rest?

As with my list of the Top Ten Best, there will be differences between my list and Scott’s, not just because of taste but because living in the UK I may get movies released at different times, if at all. Some you might disagree with my choices. That, of course, is your option, and you are perfectly entitled to your own opinions.

And I’m entitled to put those pictures I have of you in a G-string riding that llama on your friends’ Facebook pages. Just saying.

Deggsy’s Ten Worst Horror Movies of 2012 (in alphabetical order):

The AREA 407 creature seen at the end. I’ve just saved you watching this. You’re welcome.

AREA 407 (Anything Horror Scott’s review): It’s terrific when filmmakers create an independent monster movie on a miniscule budget in a matter of days, and produce something good. AREA 407 manages to do all of this but the good part. Directors Dale Fabrigar and Everette Wallin’s tale of the survivors of a plane crash finding themselves in a restricted area where an unseen creature stalks and kills them one by one fails on nearly every level: annoying cardboard characters screaming and doing stupid things, a ‘direction’ consisting of visually torturous shaky-cam spasms, improvisational dialogue from a cast that looked more comfortable reading lines in a constipation commercial – and a creature that could have been stray dog, for all we saw of it. And it’s needlessly tagged as Found Footage – if I’d been the one to find this, I’d have erased it in favour of repeats of FRIENDS. Scott’s review is here.

This is the scariest part of the movie…

CHERNOBYL DIARIES (Deggsy’s review): Another Found Footage movie, another potentially decent plot based on real events and a unique setting, crapped on and buried in the litter box. Bradley Parker’s tale of six tourists who hire an extreme tour guide who takes them to the abandoned city Pripyat, the former home to the workers of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, and who find themselves… NOT ALONE! DUM DUM DUM! Yes, Dumb, dumb, dumb. The movie was made for a million dollars; Wes Craven made the eerily similar THE HILLS HAVE EYES 35 years before for a fraction of that, and achieved greater scares. I can almost see this having been sold on the title and poster alone.

Have I mentioned this cost $150 MILLION to make!!

DARK SHADOWS (Deggsy’s review): Oh my sweet dick, thinking about DARK SHADOWS is like thinking about the hideous suit you wore to the prom because you thought it looked ‘cool’ or ‘hip’. Only the suit cost $150 million. I’m going to repeat that during the course of this recap. Dan Curtis’ brooding neo-Gothic soap opera about a vampire in modern times has been turned into a lame farce whose jokes were done to death in Mad Magazine decades before. DARK SHADOWS COST $150 MILLION TO MAKE. Tim Burton’s hetero life mate Johnny Depp takes the majestic Barnabas Collins and turns him into a sex-stupefied Benny Hill character, and the story goes all over the place like a puppy on meths. DARK SHADOWS COST $150 MILLION TO MAKE. My autopsy of the movie is here. You’ve been warned.

THE DEVIL INSIDE likes Jazz Hands!

THE DEVIL INSIDE (Anything Horror Scott’s review): Why do so many filmmakers act as if they’re the first to come up with something? Here’s a tip for you: in a century-plus since cameras were invented, a gazillion movies have been made, but only one Possession Movie. You know which one I’m talking about. So if your movie is gonna feature demons and scary voice and exorcising catholic priests, don’t believe that alone will be enough. Make it compelling. Make it coherent. Make it scary (contorting people aren’t scary unless you have a phobia for Cirque de Soleil). Give it an ending, for Pazuzu’s sake! When I saw this in the cinema, people booed the ending, and I hadn’t experienced that since BOXING HELENA! Scott’s review is here.

Oh, and DARK SHADOWS COST $150 MILLION TO MAKE.

No, Cage, you can’t avoid the horror of this film…

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (Deggsy’s review): I have a particular soft spot for this Marvel character, the leather suit and the flaming skull and the hellfire he spat from his hand as he brought vengeance upon the wicked, but had always thought he would be better served in animation (especially anime) rather than live action. The long awaited first GHOST RIDER film had been disappointing to say the least, but when I heard it was being rebooted I thought, okay, let’s give them another chance to right the wrongs of the first movie. But, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, they did it again. Nicolas Cage, still paying off the estate of Elvis Presley for character theft, goes back into WICKER MAN levels of batshit craziness, and the story lacks any real thrills or scares despite ripping off from better films. But any overall enjoyment of this movie is broken by the real-life shitkicking Ghost Rider creator Gary Friedrich has received from Marvel/Disney (The details, and my review, is here).

Hold Your Breath. And Find Something Else To Watch.

#HOLD YOUR BREATH (Deggsy’s review): A late entry from the studio that quality forgot, The Asylum. Better known for their mockbusters, they went off and made themselves an original movie, #HOLD YOUR BREATH, and proved that they could fuck up movies not based on other, better ones. The hashtag on the title is not a typo; it was part of a promotional contest, the prize of which was appearing in a future Asylum movie, which is like winning a chance to participate in setting a homeless man on fire. A group of assholes drive past a graveyard without holding their breath, thus inviting a restless spirit to re-enact the plot of Wes Craven’s SHOCKER and possess and kill. It does both ineptly (at one point, someone is killed with an electric hand mixer; that’s not as cool as it sounds, if it sounds cool at all. My review is here.

Oh, and DARK SHADOWS COST $150 MILLION TO MAKE.

THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET: A PG-13 horror film, which should already tell you just how fucking bad this travesty is, but I’ll continue. I watched this and felt like I was in some hypnagogic state where I was recalling other movies. Jennifer Lawrence stars in this story of a mother and daughter (who are having problems, of course) who move into a house near one where a young girl murdered her family and disappeared. The girl’s brother is still living there… I don’t need to go further; if I told this story to a hunter in the Cabloco tribe in the Upper Amazon, who have never even heard of movies, he would be able to finish it. There might be some recombinant pleasure in guessing the sources ripped off (“There’s BLACK CHRISTMAS, and there’s SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, and it’s just slathered all over with PSYCHO”), but couple that with a lack of blood or nudity, and you have the textbook definition of Pointless. Every time I’ve tried to write a review of this, my Autocorrect keeps typing out PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS, DADDY.

Blech … just blech!!

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D: REANIMATION (Deggsy’s review): This also gets the award for Most Awkward Title, but still stands on its own as a crap film. George Romero screwed the pooch in not securing the copyright to his classic, meaning any asshole can come along, take the title and squeeze out their own cinematic abortions. Admittedly there are a few gems, like Tom Savini’s 1990 remake. But this is not one of them. Despite starring genre favourites Jeffrey Combs and Andrew Divoff, this is a dull, listless prequel to a shit movie nobody saw, there’s almost no zombie action before the first *hour*, after which we’re treated to some crap effects that would have looked lame even in 3D, and which reminds me of the worst Uwe Boil movie ever. And do you really want to enter into *that* territory? My review is here.

Oh, and DARK SHADOWS COST $150 MILLION TO MAKE.

The difference between this PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and all the others – the number 4 of course…

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4: Further proof, as if it was needed, that the fourth movie in a series is usually a fifth wheel (Hi, CRYSTAL SKULL! Hello there, LEPRECHAUN 4 IN SPACE! What are you drinking, HELLRAISER: BLOODLINES?), PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 sees the return of the Part 3’s directors Ariel Joost and Henry Shuman, who demonstrate their firm belief that the Law of Diminishing Returns is a legal requirement. I had to check once or twice to see if this was the previous movie under a new title, like one of those Italian Mad Max knock-offs from the 80s re-released under a new name. It ran with all the lacklustre energy of a lap dancer thinking of paying off her Visa bill while grinding her besnootch on some Yuppie’s groin. I was embarrassed on their behalf, and I never even felt that way watching the ILSA movies.

RESIDENT EVIL RETRIBUTION, a movie where I have never known more about what is not going on.

RESIDENT EVIL-RETRIBUTION: I know, after kicking the crap out of the fourth entry in a horror franchise, here I am talking about the fifth in a series of films, none of the others of which I have never watched, based on a game I have never played. To which I say: kiss the fattest part of my ass. I’m from the Old School of Movie Making that demands every film be able to remain coherent; even the Star Wars saga started in the middle and could stand on its own, while in comparison, this movie is a spastic one-legged elephant. I felt like Grandpa Simpson sitting there trying to figure out what was happening and who was what? I suspect director/writer Paul W.S. Anderson spends most of his time in his attic masturbating to the deleted scenes where Milla Jovovich shows too much nipple and threatens to lose the franchise the PG-13 rating and miss out on that lucrative Retarded Tweenie demographic. Anyway, any movie that casts Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez together and doesn’t have them Do the Dirty deserves to drink coffee I’ve dipped my scrotum in.

And there you have it. What do the rest of you think, True Believers? Any you agree or disagree with, or would like to add to the list?

Am watching RE6 now… Yep…it’s pretty bad. It actually alternates between tired references to the first couple films (ya know, trying to resurrect things that worked previously, no pun intended) and some ideas that WOULD have had potential…if handled differently. And really, Milla, tell them the opening monologue thing is SO over now.

Heheh. You should see the scathing “review” I wrote last night after I finished..BTW, I guess I meant RE5, as it’s the fifth live action movie… I kind of lose track bet the films, the games, and ll the spin-offs. LOL

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